Story time for a Monday...

The journey begins right here. In the middle of the road. Right beneath your feet. This is the place. There is no other place. There is no other time. ~David Whyte
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My mind is embroiled with the issues of indecision today; so much so that I lack the ability to write anything worth posting.  However I did come across this little article that I absolutely loved and thought I’d pass on to you.  

It’s bizarre to need advice and not have a voice to speak about what you need advice about.  It’s like writers block yet more like prison.  

I hope you are all well today, and that your Monday is beautiful.
Xo
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The Power of Listening - A True Story
Adapted from Attracting Genuine Love, by Drs. Kathlyn and Gay Hendricks (Sounds True, 2004).
Simple Solution
A friend of the authors was going to a party where he would be meeting his wife’s coworkers from her new job for the first time. He felt anxious as the time for the party grew near, and wondered whether they would like him or not. He rehearsed various scenarios in his mind in which he tried in different ways to impress them. He grew more and more tense.
But on the way to the party, the man came up with a radically different approach, one which caused all of his anxiety to melt completely away. Find out what he decided to do, and how it all turned out, in this true story that could serve as inspiration for us all:
He decided that, instead of trying to impress anyone, he would spend the evening simply listening to them and summarizing what they had just said. At the party, he spent the evening listening carefully to everyone, responding with phrases like, "I understand what you’re saying, you feel strongly that. . ." and "Let me see if I understand what you mean. . ." He also avoided voicing his own opinions, even though at times it meant biting his tongue to keep from doing so.
To his amazement, he discovered that no one noticed or remarked on the fact that he was just listening. Each person he talked to during the evening seemed content to be listened to without interruption. On the way home, his wife (whom he had not told about the experiment) told him that a number of people had made a point of telling her what a remarkable person he was. The word "charismatic" was used by one person to describe him, while another said he was one of the most "articulate" people she had ever met.
Could it be that charisma and brilliance have as much to do with how we listen as what we say? Imagine a world where people actually listen to one another, rather than just waiting for the other people to stop talking so they can give their opinion.
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(added after original posting)
(It seems I do not have writers block when it comes to fiction, only when it comes to things I have to deal with personally.  So I’m just listing some of the things I’ve been mulling about in my head in an effort to keep creativity going.)

A last glance backwards revealed my home back in its pristine state having suffered the terrors of a houseguest for a few days.  On the edges of my vision a foreshadowing danced taunting me.  Some how I knew that while I longed for this quietness again, I knew the incessant stirrings of loneliness would come again.  Stepping over the threshold to begin my day I tried to turn off the thoughts of a loneliness so deep that an empty house resonates with it’s sounds like an echo on an empty cavern wall.

Marching through my day, well… not marching more like struggling, begging, pleading for release from the tedium I somehow made it to the end of the day.  Though I was hardly the champion runner, breathing deep with the strains of exertion on a well earned reward.  Instead I was the quiet one off to the side, hoping to slink out unnoticed before someone else caught me for some more mundane work.  “You there, sharpen those pencils!”.  I shudder to think of it.

The velvet green cushions hold me closer than any lover has had and I might add with just as much (Or perhaps more) gentleness.  But even the grasp of the couch while soft against my rear, did nothing to soothe the emptiness I felt.  So, I made friends with a rather exotic spicy thing, with a very strange name of Fat Bastard in an effort to stave off the pangs of loneliness that were becoming customary once again.  Swishing the wine I wondered what it was about the empty apartment that made me feel so hollow.  My new friend Fat Bastard helped ease me to understanding sweetly, when after a few more glasses I realized… it wasn’t the apartment it was the emptiness in my heart.  Mr. Fat Bastard as I was calling him, having earned the title of Mr. by helping me sort through my feelings, let me in on a little secret.  The secret of an empty heart.  It speaks to itself waiting, hoping for an answer.  And each time as Mr. Fat Bastard explained, it hopes…  The bright glimmer is there, and in some such cases, it thinks to be the beacon of the lighthouse.  But as he whispered to me gently urging me to another drink “All is not what it seems”.  Soon Mr. Fat Bastard showed me the way to numbness and offered me the quiet darkness of sleep.

All around the apartment digital lights glowed, clocks marched time on ushering in another day, and unnoticed on the couch I slept with only the moon and Mr. Fat Bastard to watch over me.  

©SKW